Halloween with the Kaiba's
by storypaint
Summary: It's Oct. 31st and Mokuba has annoyed Seto into having a Halloween partyand inviting Yugi and company. Yami is a vampire, Ryou is a... girl?, the apple cider is spiked, and that's only the beginning...


Halloween with the Kaiba's

_By Rhapsody Moonschild (dropsofviolet@yahoo.com)_

|~*DISCLAIMER: Yu-Gi-Oh! isn't my property.  Belongs to Kazuki Takahashi.

This fanfic is a response to Fate's fanfic challenge #2: Seto chews bubble gum, wears face paint, and tutus make an appearance.  Somehow I managed to stick 'em all in.

This is a mostly humorous fic, so I hope you get some sort of a laugh out of it.  Review to tell me what you liked—and what you didn't like.

_Watashi no ai, Rhap-chan*~|_

"Come on, Onii-chan, please…"

Mokuba put on Begging Face #1, in which his eyes went as wide as Yugi's, his hair seemed tame, and he exuded an aura of cuteness.

Seto had seen Begging Face #1 too many times to be affected.  He cracked his gum and shook his head.  The gum was in fact another one of Mokuba's bright ideas, one that Seto had actually liked.  When he felt stressed he was supposed to chew it and feel better.  Not that it made the KaibaCorp CEO any mellower… but he found that he liked the taste.  He blew a bubble that was slightly too large and scowled as it popped and got caught in his hair.  He needed a haircut but was too cheap to pay for some "high school dropout blonde bimbo to take a little off the ends and then charge 1500 yen for it."

"Please, Onii-chan, come on…"

Seeing his brother still unaffected and mostly occupied by moodily picking gum out of his hair, Mokuba switched to Begging Face #2.  This face had the power to make Mokuba fangirls faint upon sight.

Seto totally ignored it, completely focused on the gum.  Ow, he thought, irritated, as he pulled some of his hair out with the gum.

In desperation Mokuba brought out the big guns.  He put on Begging Face #3 and tried to tie his wish into something Seto might enjoy as well.  Seto watched him with a small smirk on his face (having given up on the gum but promising himself to find peanut butter later).  He knew that it was coming…  How would his brother try to pull him in this time?

"I'll invite Yugi and his friends and you can have a friendly duel!"

How much of a one-track mind did Mokuba think he had?  Seto sniffed.  He had no wish to fight Yugi again.  He was tired of being beaten by the Puzzle spirit.  And besides, he already had plans for the night in question: he was going to go down to the Kame Game Shop in disguise and torment the dog boy, then come back here and sit in moody silence as became the high school age director of a major software company.

It was then Seto realized he had no life and indeed a one-track mind.  That's what he did *every* day.  It would be a nice change, in fact, if the dog boy would come to him for once instead of the other way around.

Mokuba noticed Seto considering and tensed himself to do what he had to… Begging Face #4 involved falling to his knees and pleading.  Rarely did he have to go that far…

Seto cracked his gum again, noticed in disgust that more of it was caught up in his hair, and then nodded slowly.

"YES!!!" Mokuba yelled happily.  At a glare from his brother he silenced and hurried out of the room to make the invitations.~*~

You are invited to

HALLOWEEN WITH THE KAIBAS

Please come in costume to Kaiba Mansion

from 7-10 October 31st.

"Is it a joke?"

"It has to be…"

"You're kidding me…"

Seto stood stiffly and made no reply.  He chewed his gum vigorously instead, making him look like a tall, gothic cow on its cud.  Ryou, who was unhappily standing close enough that he could feel the former priest's icy aura, shivered and noticed a strong smell of peanut butter for some reason.

"I don't think he is, guys," Yugi said quietly.  He pointed at the bottom of the orange paper.  There were crude drawings there: Mokuba in a mouse costume and Seto in a…

Well it couldn't be.  Surely not…

Well, it had obviously been drawn by Mokuba, so maybe it was what it seemed to be… That is, Seto in a tutu.  A pink one.  A ballerina outfit, no less.

Yugi blinked and hoped that the CEO did *not* plan to wear that, that it was only Mokuba's harmless fun.  Obviously Seto hadn't looked closely at the invitation.

Jou snickered.  "Is he wearing—?"

Anzu, obviously anticipating the result if Jou was allowed to finish the sentence, kicked him hard in the shins.  Jou dissolved in a series of curses, but it was better than having to witness another one of the 'dog-boy/cold jerk' fights.

"We'll be delighted to come," Yugi said to Kaiba over Jou's yells.

Seto sniffed.  "I could care less.  It was Mokuba's idea."  He stalked off.  When his gum popped loudly Honda looked questioningly at the boy's tall trench-coat-covered back.

"Since when does Kaiba chew gum?"

But he was ignored as the rest of his friends began to discuss what they were going to be and take bets on what Kaiba was going to wear.  Honda thought about it and decided to be a dinosaur.  It would go so well with his hair.~*~

It was a large group that pulled up Kaiba's driveway that October 31st.  Yugi and the gang, believing as usual the more the merrier, had collected Mai, Otogi, and the Ishtar's along the way.  So what if they weren't invited?  Anzu, Jou, and Honda hadn't been invited to Duelist Kingdom and no one had cared.  The bad guys obviously couldn't count. 

That brought the number of their group up to nine, twelve if you counted the yamis, who surprisingly had also come in costume.  They hadn't come in bodily form, but the stuff that the Shadow Realm was made up of was unexpectedly malleable and they had had no trouble manipulating it into something to wear.

Since Mai was the only one who could drive, and the only one who would trust herself to drive, they had walked.  This wasn't perhaps the best option for Yugi, who could barely move at all.

This was to be attributed to what he was wearing; the keeper of the Puzzle wore neck to toe bandages.  He had dressed himself as a mummy, only leaving his head free (and he had artistically arranged a few bandages in the spikes of his hair as well).  But the mummy costume was difficult to maneuver in, as the little tri-colored-haired one didn't want everyone and their dog to get a glimpse of his Black Magician-patterned boxers.

Though they were better than the ones his yami had been trying to get him to wear—the black, silky pair, under the reasoning that, "if your bandages fall down and they see everything, at least they'll get a nice view."

Yugi had blushed at that and tried to ignore it.  Like a good hikari he wasn't supposed to do those things.  (That's why he did them in secret, where no one could see).

Yami Yugi himself had dressed as a vampire.  When Yugi had explained the concept to him, he had been sold on the formal but gothic manner of dress.  He was wearing a black Victorian suit that made him seem taller than he was (and yes, underneath, the black, silky boxers, not that he expected his pants to fall down).  He wore his usual neck buckle and also one on each of his legs.  As for the fangs… he had simply let his teeth lengthen.  Yami Bakura and Yami Malik did it all the time, why not he?

Yami Bakura was sulking.  His hikari was walking alongside him, trying not to get in his dark's way or even field of vision.  And the reason Yami Bakura was sulking was because he had also dressed himself as a vampire.

And one must admit he had done a good job of it.  Ryou hadn't expected so much enthusiasm from his darkness, but Bakura did like blood and looked vampiric already.  He had clothed himself in a burgundy top with black leather jeans.  There were chains decorating both pale arms; he'd streaked his silvery mop with crimson and there was a sharp fang-like charm in his ear.  Completed with his pearly fangs, mahogany eyes and pale pale skin, he looked as if he would tear your neck open as soon as look at you; and in fact was contemplating this fate for Yami.

Ryou stumbled in his heels and nearly fell onto his darkness, who pushed him back upward with a harsh noise, though one can't really blame the fellow for tripping in two-inch stilettos…

Inwardly the hikari was cursing.  His yami had thrown his arm across Ryou's sternum, and besides making his chest feel as if it was on fire it had made Ryou's 'breasts' slip down a little.

Yes, Ryou was dressed as a girl, had done it quite well, in fact.  He wore a sky-blue sheath dress, pantyhose, and the white stilettos.  From the back (and from the front when his breasts weren't drooping) he looked rather feminine.  Mai had offered to do his hair and makeup, and blushing Ryou had declined.  He did it himself very well, picking a good bronze eyeshadow and pale pink lipcolor. His hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail and his fingernails were painted perfectly in a shade of deep red known as Jamaican Rum.

He had practiced before, of course but had never gone out with his friends when cross-dressing before.  Usually he went to bars by himself and saw how many guys he could pick up and how long he could lead them on.

Don't tell me you don't believe it's true. ^-^

As for the others—Mai was dressed as a beauty queen, Honda as a dinosaur, as mentioned before, Jou was a wolf ("I'm a wolf!  A WOLF!!!  Not a dog!!!), Isis was herself, Otogi dressed as a jester, Anzu was a princess, Malik wearing cat ears and tail, and Yami Malik dressed in the same outfit, only claiming himself to be a tiger.  No one pushed the point with the keeper of the Rod.

_You know, if he weren't so flipping scary he'd be kinda cute…_ Anzu thought, staring at Yami Malik's back.  As if he had read her mind he turned around and gave her a toothy grin, waving the Sennen Rod in salute.  Anzu shivered.  _Please tell me he doesn't read minds anymore…_

Before Malik's darkness spoke (Anzu was about to faint with fear) they made it to the front door.  It swung open seemingly of its own accord and cautiously the crew walked in.

Their footsteps echoed loudly in the dark and empty entrance hall.  Anzu shrieked when something appeared out of the darkness, but it was only Mokuba.

He was dressed as a small warrior.  The impression he was trying to give was one that struck fear into the hearts of his brother's enemies, but it was Mokuba.  He wasn't scary.  In fact, Mai bent down and hugged him.

"Isn't he so *cute*?!"

Mokuba tried to use his cute little plastic sword to pry her off of him, but it didn't work.  He was beginning to wonder whether he'd be able to breathe pressed so close between her breasts like that when she gave a final, boa-constrictor-like squeeze and let him go.

He tried to scowl, but it was a cute scowl.  Inwardly the younger Kaiba sighed, but he led them through the darkness into the main drawing-room.

It was decorated kind of pathetically, in streamers placed only as high as one small boy could reach and grinning pumpkins on the walls.  And leaning against one of the far walls was Seto himself.~*~

Seto yawned and checked his watch.  It was about time…  If they were his employees he would have fired them already.  Ten minutes late!  His face settled into a scowl that twitched a couple times.

His face paint itched and he wanted greatly to scratch it; also the peanut butter smell that still hung around his hair made his stomach growl in odd moments.  He had dressed up, at Mokuba's insistence, and his annoying brother had painted his face.

He was dressed as a zombie, he had been told.  That morning he had requested roughly of the maid a costume for that night.  He had enjoyed the fear in her eyes and the promptness with which she had returned, bearing a stained, torn, worn-out old trench-coat of his, high black boots, and beaten-up Goth buckles to place upon his costume at his discretion.  With some distaste he had also mussed his hair and believed the job done; however Mokuba had absolutely *insisted* (going so far as Begging Face #4) that he paint his face also.

His eye twitched and he hoped that the group did not linger long, though he noted with inner amusement that Jou had clothed himself as the dog he was.

As if Jounouchi had read his mind the blonde looked over and glared at Seto.  Seto's mouth curled into a strange, uneasy smile.  Dog-boy, he mouthed, and Jou's glare deepened.

Perhaps this evening wouldn't be as much of a waste of time as he thought it would be.~*~

It was a quarter to eight and bobbing for apples had taken an interesting turn when it was revealed that someone (probably Otogi) had heavily spiked the cider they were floating in with alcohol.  The first victim of their trick, Seto himself (once again at Mokuba's insistence), had staggered out of the room to throw up because he had swallowed rather too much alcohol in a short period of time.  He sat on the porcelain floor and cursed ineffectually at Yugi and company.  Probably his brother would come to drag him out soon, but he was enjoying his peace for the moment.

The rest of them were anything but peaceful.  When confronted with a large amount of alcohol and firmly-teetotal hikaris, Yami Bakura and Yami Malik, inspired, quickly found a way to materialize separately from said hikaris.  With alcohol in their systems they had become fast friends.  In fact, they were leaning heavily on the barrel and singing drinking songs in Egyptian, Bakura teaching Marik as they went along.

Their hikaris were back against the wall out of the way.  They knew that drunken yamis often turned violent.  As Bakura began something that, had it been in Japanese, would have been unprintable in the most hentai magazine, Ryou sighed and he and Malik traded long-suffering looks.

"Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em," Malik said sagely, and Ryou nodded in agreement and watched, almost amused, as Bakura abandoned the song, consumed more alcohol, and began chasing Yami Yugi around the room, trying to bite his neck.  Idly Ryou wondered if he himself would be the one to wake up with a hangover in the morning… he hoped not.

The rest of the group was trying their hardest to ignore the yamis and carry on their own conversations; Mokuba, almost forgotten, popped up and joined them whenever he could.

The Sennen Eye began to glow on Yami Yugi's forehead.  Ryou sighed and decided to go find Seto in hopes that he could calm the darknesses down a little, or at least violently expel them from the grounds.~*~

"Kaiba?"

The voice was polite and cultured.  Seto couldn't quite place it…  He popped another piece of gum in his mouth to erase the taste of vomit and ignored the speaker.

"Seto?"

This time the voice's owner poked his head through the door.  His bronze eyeshadow glimmered a little in the dim lighting; Seto had a strange feeling of déjà vu.  Ryou had it too, suddenly.  He blinked and tried to remember…

Seto did first and his face went pale underneath the face paint (which, being irritating, had already been mostly scratched off).  The rest of Ryou came through the doorway and he bent down to see why it was that Kaiba was sitting on his bathroom floor, now hitting his head against the wall.  It was then he remembered where he'd seen the CEO recently.

"Last week, the Blind Archer, right?" he said in his whispery-soft, almost-feminine voice.  Kaiba had been a good one.  He'd been able to lead him on until the former priest had offered him a ride home.  Unfortunately, when Kaiba's… efforts at determining 'her' physical structure (okay, his groping) had revealed him to be male, Seto had disappeared quite quickly and had promised himself to never speak of the time when he had almost picked up a cross-dresser in a bar to anyone.

The wall was beginning to leave a bump on the back of his head; Kaiba hoped that the next time he was desperate enough to bother with a local tavern for female company the bruise would remind him how stupid the idea was.

"I had a nice time," Ryou said with a slightly mocking grin.  He couldn't resist… he leaned down and kissed the CEO on the forehead, and then returned to the party, wearing a small, evil grin.  Living with Yami Bakura taught one the amusing qualities of sadism.~*~

"Onii-chan?"

Seto was ready to start banging his head on the wall again when he realized that it was his brother's voice.  Mokuba was infinitely more tolerable than the return of the cross-dresser would have been; Seto muttered, "Feh," to acknowledge the younger boy's presence and Mokuba came in.

"Seto, what are you doing in here all alone?"

_Contemplating how deep I can sink into utter stupidity_ was what he wanted to reply but he knew the irony would be lost on his younger sibling.  Seto simply shrugged.

"Come on, you're missing everything!"

Boldly Mokuba grabbed his brother's hand and with extreme difficulty pulled the CEO to his feet.  Seto let himself be led back into the drawing room.~*~

The party was actually winding down.  Yami Malik and Yami Bakura were already walking with awkward steps and trying to flirt with Anzu, which signaled their sheer drunkenness.  Their hikaris knew that soon the yamis would collapse in drunken stupor and return to their soul rooms; they hoped that the Shadow Realm would take care of their hangovers or there would be yet another messy murder to clean up after.

After Yami Yugi had managed to get Yami Bakura off of him by way of shadow magic he had disappeared into a corner with Jou, Otogi, and Mai to discuss dueling tactics… not always strictly legal ones.

"Yugi believes in the heart of the cards—I believe in stacking the deck."*

((*Thanks to sky_pirate_tat for that awesome quote.  Have borrowed it, Tat-chan.))

In disgust Isis had left long ago to stare moodily out her hotel room window and wish that she had been born into another family.  Also she was secretly wishing that the Sennen Tauk had contained a yami; then at least she would have one intelligent friend, though a sadistic one.

Once Mokuba had returned with Seto, Yugi, always the good guest, was trying to make conversation with his hosts.  It wasn't easy.

"I like what you've done with the place…"  Yugi's voice trailed up at the end.  Obviously Seto hadn't been involved with prep and so the décor was actually quite pathetic.  Seto grunted noncommittally; Mokuba beamed.

Yugi decided to try again.  "So… had any good duels lately?"

Seto frowned and fixed upon the boy an icy stare.  The only good duels he had ever had were against the Puzzle spirit, and they weren't all that great because he had lost.  Yami Yugi had defied the hieroglyphics!  It was practically carved into stone (actually, it had been) that the high priest was the winner of their duel, and unfortunately it hadn't ended that way.

Seto never had any good duels at all, actually.  Why did he even bother with Duel Monsters, boredom?

Mentally Kaiba added _find new obsession_ to his to-do list.  It went right below _annoy the dog-boy_ but before _scowl at the maid until she washes my favorite trench-coat_.

Yugi racked his brain for a question that Seto wouldn't find offensive.

"Nice weather we're having?" he said weakly.

"Too cold," Seto said frostily and stalked off without another word to talk to… well, there was no one else in the room he really wanted to talk to.

From his place leaning against the wall Ryou grinned suggestively at him; for probably the first time ever Seto blushed furiously and turned away from the tomb-robber's hikari.

"What's up with Kaiba?" Malik asked Ryou.

"I'll have to tell you the story sometime…" Ryou said and shot the CEO a wink; Kaiba tried to glare back but was having a very hard time of it.

Honda stood—ignored, as usual—close to the door.  Mokuba—also ignored except when he needed to be kidnapped—drew close to him.

"Toyota?" he said uncertainly to the green-clad boy.  Honda sighed.  Everyone forgot his name.

"No, I'm Honda."  _For goodness sake I saved your life once, remember?!  I protected you from Yami Bakura, but no one ever remembers that…_

"Are you a dragon?" Mokuba said brightly and waved his toy sword.

"Well, actually, a dinosaur…"

The little boy's face fell.  "Aww, I thought I would get to defeat the dragon…"

Honda was bored.  He went with it.  "And rescue the princess?" he said, pointing to Mai, who had stepped out of the duelists' circle and was adjusting her makeup.

Mokuba's eyes brightened.  "Yeah!"

"Well, have at it!" Honda replied, striking a judo pose and trying to growl like a dragon.  He looked and sounded stupid, but he doubted anyone else was going to pay attention; thus was the life of a useless secondary character.

Mokuba brandished his plastic sword and made a few practice feints.  "Huzzah!" he said, having no idea what the word meant, and continued, "You will die, evil dragon!"

"Grr," Honda said unconvincingly.  He was actually kind of enjoying himself and wondering if he should join the drama club at school.

Mokuba struck at him and Honda swung his tail around, knocking the little boy backwards a bit, but the costume was made of fabric and stuffed generously so it did no harm.

They 'combated' across the floor, managing not to run into anyone until Mokuba was pressed up against the 'cauldron' of apple cider.  He frowned.

"I'm supposed to win, I'm the good guy!"

"Good guys get ignored or killed," Honda said to prep the young one for high school.  Good-naturedly he picked the younger Kaiba up and dunked his head in the brew.

It was only after that he remembered that the cauldron's contents were heavily spiked with alcohol.~*~

The dunking was unexpected to Mokuba, so much so that he gulped down a rather lot of the brew before being able to breathe.  He coughed and tried to make his eyes focus as Honda set him back on the ground.

The younger Kaiba looked up at the 'dragon'—er, dragons.  There seemed to be two blurred ones.  He staggered a little, trying to find his footing, though the ground seemed to want to move beneath his feet.

Come on, people, the boy is what, ten?  He's never had alcohol before…

"Erm…" Honda said uneasily and slipped away.  As a secondary character it was one of the few things he was good at.

Mokuba glanced around, still trying to make his eyes focus.  With the special care of the extremely drunken, he made his way over to Seto.  The elder Kaiba was leaning against the far wall, trying to ignore Ryou across the room as the cross-dresser tried to flirt with him.

A very small spark of concern crossed the CEO's eyes as he saw his brother staggering toward him.  It died quickly.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked in a professional tone.  Mokuba took a couple tries and finally managed to grab the edge of his brother's trench-coat.  He stared blurrily up at his brother/idol.

_What's wrong with that kid?  Am I going to have to find someone new to carry my briefcase?_ was what Seto was thinking.  He wouldn't understand true concern if it bit him on the butt.

Mokuba tried to gather his thoughts.  "I… I… thr… frown onto…"* he slurred.  Seto tried to interpret his brother's strange words.

((*One guesses that he was trying to say he was thrown into the apple cauldron, but that's a complicated thought to express when you're seeing double.))

"A photo?" the elder Kaiba asked finally, with a little distaste.  Seto disliked pictures, mostly because of all the jokes that Yugi's crew made about him not appearing in the photograph.

But if his brother meant it as a conclusion to the night, he'd be happy to go along with it.  After all, if they all left soon, he'd still have time to moodily stare into the fireplace for an hour or so before he went to bed.

"Come on, then," he said briskly, and gestured for the younger Kaiba to follow him as he moved into the center of the room.  Since everyone was pretty well preoccupied (and Yami Malik actually out cold at the moment because Anzu had hit him over the head with his own Sennen Item), he considered for a moment.

Finally he decided on something that should get everyone's attention and yelled, "DUEL MONSTERS IS A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY!!!"

The room froze and all eyes turned to the CEO, who coughed once now that everyone was focused on him.  "Erm.  Well, not seriously.  Mokuba would like a photograph of everyone and then you are to leave my household."  He eyed the fallen Yami Malik with Malik standing over him, poking him in the side to get him to awaken, then his eyes slid over to where Yami Bakura was puking his guts out through the open window.  "And never return," he added to his statement.

Mokuba was feeling too strange to correct his brother.  He kept ahold of Seto's trench-coat for balance and watched blurrily as everyone assembled around them.

It took some doing to settle everyone.  Finally Yugi climbed up and sat on his yami's shoulders so that he might be visible, Yami Malik was propped up (still out cold) against his hikari, and Yami Bakura was pulled away from the window to join the rest of the crowd.  A maid was summoned for a camera.

"Say cheese," she said unenthusiastically (her thoughts being _Do I get paid extra for this?_) and pressed the button—as all heck broke loose.

When the picture came out it was like this: Yami Bakura a pale blur, running back to the window, Yami Malik awakened and thomping his hikari soundly for holding him so intimately, Yugi falling off of Yami Yugi (and giving everyone a nice view of the Black Magician-patterned boxers as his costume unraveled), Mai still adjusting her makeup, Jou growling in the direction of Seto, Ryou giving the self-same CEO a smooch on the cheek, Kaiba therefore mortified, Otogi striking a goofy jester-like pose, and Mokuba throwing up on Seto's old trench-coat.

All in all, Halloween with the Kaiba's wasn't that bad.~*~


End file.
